On Saturday 20th January on channel Ftn Louise Wener is in Celebrity Poker Club 2,
according to the Radio Times online.
Starts at 12.00am until 1.30am.
Ftn can be found on Freeview: 20, on Sky: 157, on ntl/Telewest: 123
Just brought to my attention via this Comic Book Resources piece about titles they're looking forward to in 2007 is Phonogram, a new six-issue limited series on Image that's set in modern-day London but is based in the Britpop days of the mid-90s, thankfully not in a wholly nostalgic light though the album cover homages have been nice. I've only lightly cruised the first few issues but it looks pretty good, sort of a cross between Hellblazer, Transmetropolitan and Books Of Magic but with an Echobelly soundtrack. Could be promising.
Newsarama has the whole of the first issue available to read online and the first story arc, Rue Britannia, is supposed to be out in trade paperback in March though that presumes that the individual issues will have already come out by then, never a sure thing. But check it out. It actually made me sort of wish I still had my Sleeper CDs.
After Echobelly, the band whose videos I've most wanted to catch up on (thanks, YouTube!) is Sleeper. The 90s group, fronted by the outspoken Louise Wener, put out at least three albums from '95 to '97--Smart, The It Girl, and Pleased to Meet You, all worth picking up. Having now seen vids from all three, I'm convinced that one of the reasons they only lasted a few years and never won more fans here in the States was that this band never had great videos--even though they had a striking lead singer. Wener not only knew her way around a guitar, she also figured out along the way how to keep the cameras pointed at her.
"Can a single event, a simple twist of fate, dictate the way we go on to live our lives?" wonders Claire, the central character in Louise Wener's lovely, offbeat fourth novel, "The Half Life of Stars." In her brother Daniel's case, the answer may be yes. But the event in question was no simple twist of fate. When Daniel, a lawyer, disappears, leaving his wife and children behind, everyone has a theory . He's been kidnapped. He's intentionally dropped out, with the help of a mysterious Japanese organization. He's run off with another woman. But Claire is the only one with a notion of where he may have gone, and why.
Claire is an appealing narrator. She's divorced, sexy, irreverent, imaginative, probably the sanest member of a family held together by a net of lies. With her ex-husband, Michael, Claire searches for Daniel in Florida, where the family spent several unhappy years. Their father died of a heart attack on a trip to Cape Canaveral. Daniel, then a teenager, was with him. Claire has an idea that there may be some connection between her father's death and her brother's disappearance. Wener, the lead singer of the 1990s British band Sleeper, is at her best when she's exploring family relationships.
girly indie 12 November 2006, by millhouse ¶ 13:48
i was collating some tunes into a playlist on mp3 player the other day and struck on the idea of choosing my favourite inde tunes with girl singers. or something along those lines. i thought i may as well share it here - complete with links to the tracks (the quality is purposefully poor to save space - and hopefully to persuade anybody who downloads these and likes them to go out and obtain them properly so you can have a decent quality listenable version. any record company lawyer types watching - note the above, if you want me to take these down, consider it done.
you can right-click and 'save as...' for each file, though if you click on it, you may well hear a streamed version. i don't know.
- 01 Echobelly - Great Things A Britpop era band, and very good they were too. Part of the NWONW (New Wave Of New Wave) thing in the pre-Britpop days, before everybody starting wearing adidas and fred perry and thought they may as well start another 'genre'. This appeared on Britpop Now, the excellent BBC2 program summarising all those bands - watch this song here
- 02 Elastica - All Nighter Another Britpop band. Their first album is ace , I particularly like this one - better than Connection and Line Up in my opinion. The question remains though - is Justine Frischmann fit? 11 years and I still can't figure it out. I think she is. you decide
- 03 Sleeper - What Do I Do Now yep, another Britpop-era band. This is off their second album, the It Girl and one of my favourite sleeper songs, though I think Smart is generally a better album. Louise Wener is an author now with three books under her belt. Anybody who has seen any footage of Sleeper live will attest that they tend to like to play in cold venues a lot.
Claire's older brother, Daniel, has disappeared. He leaves work one Friday afternoon, shortly before Christmas, and vanishes into thin air. Married, successful, rich, there seems no reason why he would abandon his life. Has he been killed? Has he been kidnapped? Or has he just had enough?
Set between London and Miami, this is the story of a family with ghosts to bury. It opens on the day of the Challenger shuttle explosion at Cape Canaveral: a tragic moment that rips this family apart and sets Daniel's disappearance in motion some 18 years later. In the midst of it all sits Claire—divorced, irresponsible, fluent in six foreign languages yet hopeless at interpreting life. It is Claire who knows Daniel best. It is Claire who becomes convinced that she knows where her older brother is and sets off on a journey to find him.
61st over: Pakistan 248-2 (Hafeez 55, Yousuf 75) Great news for England: it looks like it might start raining any second. Not so good is the introduction of Paul Collingwood (Test bowling average: 12m), and in his first over Yousuf steals a single to bring up the hundred partnership. "Talking of Britpop people, my first gig was Sleeper (massive crush on Louise Wener) supported by the Longpigs," says Andrew Benbow. "Crispin Hunt now works in the Houses of Parliament, and always looks a bit shocked when people whistle On and On behind him in the cantine. I say always, I'm the only person who has probably ever done it..." He must have kittens every time he reads all the 'she said's in interviews with Jade Goody. But only if we play five bowlers.
Subsequent issues will reference Oasis' DEFINITELY MAYBE, Blur's MODERN LIFE IS RUBBISH, Black Grape's IT'S GREAT WHEN YOU'RE STRAIGHT, YEAH!, Manic Street Preachers' THE HOLY BIBLE and Suede's self-titled debut.
A very pregnant Louise Wener is featured in this Britpop documentary called the Britpop Story (which I'm sure all of you have seen already). But in case you haven't seen it, it's available on youtube. Please note that
BBC has a habit of pulling down videos, so watch these while you can (or alternatively you can download the files):
As Top of the Pops airs for the last time tonight, former guest and fan Louise Wener remembers
'Your single's in the Top 10. You're going to be on Top of the Pops.' From the age of six, I'd played these words through my head thousands of times. When I finally heard them for real, I knew I'd officially become a pop star.
TOTP was the dream. I grew up on it. Every Thursday evening throughout its heyday, I'd capture the best bits by holding my tape recorder up to our television speaker until my arm ached. Between shows, I'd wear out the tapes I'd made, reliving every detail of my favourite performances. Bowie doing 'Ashes to Ashes'. Blondie oozing her way through 'Heart of Glass'. Bob Geldof spitting out 'I Don't Like Mondays' and, um, David Essex singing 'Gonna Make You a Star'. In a childhood landscape of power cuts, Mr Whippy ice cream and Morecambe and Wise, Top of the Pops was a piece of magic, a portal to an exotic and fabulous world.
The main character in Goodnight Steve McQueen, the first novel written by Louise Wener, is on the other side of the question of whether to give up. Danny McQueen (his real first name is Steve) is a guitarist in a London three-piece called Dakota that always seems just around the corner from the big break. Danny’s girlfriend has bigger things in mind for him than working at the video store and playing the small-club gig, and basically lays it down for him – either score a record deal or quit music.
Danny and his bandmates make one last, huge push, with some quite hilarious results at times. Wener -- who was the lead singer of Sleeper, a fairly successful Britpop band in the U.K. -- is at her best when Danny is dealing with the other two guys in Dakota, Dexys Midnight Runners-obsessed lead singer Vince and affable, naïve drummer Matty.
The latest single from The Hot Puppies is infectious and seductive in equal measure. 'The Girl Who's Too Beautiful' is good on so many levels, and each level conjures up different memories to different people. For myself it recalled a mixture of classic Sleeper with Louise Wener at her best, seducing me as a teenager, combined with the generic modern day rules of new indie. It is sexually charged indie pop that will drag you from pillar to post, and confirm The Hot Puppies as a force to keep your eyes peeled for.
As the lead singer of 90s pop band Sleeper, Louise Wener had no interest in having children and ending up knee-deep in nappies. Then last year she had a daughter - and discovered that she loved motherhood. But she also found that for her generation admitting such a thing was almost shameful ...
It is three weeks before my baby is due and I am sitting in my GP's waiting room. A woman sits down next to me and stares intently at my bump. She asks if this baby is my first and I nod, expecting some words of congratulations. Instead, she frowns and shakes her head. "Your life will never be the same," she says. She doesn't mean this in a good way. She means I have no idea what I'm in for.
Directed by longtime collaborator Maria Mochnacz, the DVD a 28-minute interview with Harvey about writing, recording and performing. Among the featured songs are "Down by the Water," "It's You" and "Meet Ze Monsta" captured at stops in the United States and across Europe while the band was out behind that year's "Uh Huh Her."
Mochnacz and Harvey have a lengthy relationship that covers every PJ Harvey music video, some of which remain unreleased. She has also directed clips for Robert Miles, M People, Echobelly, Sleeper and Sven Vath, among others.
“I am from another land,” announces Lisa O’Neill of Sing-Sing, “not so hard to understand.” Let’s give that some perspective: Lisa’s land is 1995, a place where Blur and Oasis are going at it tooth and nail, any likely lads seen drinking in Camden Town are snagging record deals (and hefty coke fueled advances) and, somehow, skinny indie girls are unlikely sex symbols. Today’s territory finds Blur’s lead singer as a cartoon character, Liam and Noel acting out the parts of human cartoons (to great aplomb, it should be noted) whilst Menswe@r are more Menswhere? and Louise Wener is inexplicably writing novels about poker players. Sadly, Sing-Sing have yet to change with the times.
It really shouldn't be a surprise in this day and age to see three sassy, glamorous women on their way to greatness in the music industry, but disappointingly it is. Ten years since Cerys Matthews fronted Catatonia in a nice dress, and Louise Wener and Justine Frischmann were regularly bothering the charts, Abi from the Zutons and Sarah from Belle and Sebastian are two of the very few British women you can see on TOTP in an indie band. The gig circuit is crowded with countless bands with women in them - Duke Spirit, Sons and Daughters and Tilly and the Wall to name but a few - but somehow these groups never seem to make the leap up.
Supergrass grows up
By Shilpa Ganatra/ Across the Pond
Friday, February 10, 2006
Few British bands in their right mind would choose to tour the States so soon after the pause of the holiday season.
But Oxford’s Supergrass is an exception to every rule. Itkicks off a short U.S. tour at the Paradise tonight.
The most surprising fact of the tour, though, is that the band is still going strong after 12 years.
When Supergrass formed in 1994, the British resistance to grunge was already in full force. Blur had cemented its place in everyone’s affections with ‘‘Parklife.” Oasis merited its rock ’n’ roll swagger by releasing‘‘Definitely Maybe.” And the London Suede had effectively invented metrosexuality with its eponymous debut.
By that time, too, bandwagon followers had sprung up. You’d be forgiven for not remembering Echobelly, Menswear, Shed Seven and Sleeper. Supergrass - singer-guitarist Gaz Coombes, bassist Mick Quinn, drummer Danny Goffey and Gaz’ brother Rob Coombes on keyboards - emerged as yet another B-list band.
'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.'' Admittedly, the opening sentence of the Charles Dickens' classic A Tale of Two Cities, is a peculiar way to describe that fleeting period in rock music history known as Britpop.
But it also best summarises the lofty heights achieved in music creativity and its spectacular fall as the '90s British indie music scene self-destructed under the weight of its own hype and expectation.
As musically influential periods go, it never took on say, the cultural and political significance of the '70's punk movement. It was, however, a period that saw a resurgence of the great British bands and their world-wide impact on the pop music scene.
Now, The Britpop Story, a documentary to be aired on Staurday (BBC Prime 10.30am and 5.30pm) and repeated on Sunday (2.30pm and 10.30pm) attempts to recapture this fascinating period and all the characters and bands which shaped it.
John Harris, journalist and author of The Last Party: Britpop, Blair And The Demise Of English Rock (2003) hosts a doccie that features Blur's Graham Coxon; Elastica's Justine Frischmann; Sleeper's Louise Wener; founder of Creation records, Alan McGee, who managed the likes of The Stone Roses and Oasis.
Synopsis
Funny, poignant and entirely original, this is the stunning new novel by the author Goodnight Steve Mcqueen. Have you ever wished you could walk away from it all? Not for a day, not for a week, but for good. Claire's older brother, Daniel, has disappeared. He leaves work one Friday afternoon, shortly before Christmas, and vanishes into thin air. Married, successful, rich, there seems no reason why he would abandon his life. Has he been killed? Has he been kidnapped? Or has he just had enough? Set between London and Miami, this is the story of a family with ghosts to bury. It opens on the day of the Challenger shuttle explosion at Cape Canaveral; a tragic moment that rips this family apart and sets Daniel's disappearance in motion some 18 years later. In the midst of it all sits Claire - promiscuous, divorced, irresponsible; fluent in six foreign languages, yet hopeless at interpreting life. It is Claire that knows Daniel best. It is Claire who becomes convinced that she knows where her older brother is and sets off on a journey to find him. Part mystery, part love story, part comic road trip, this is the story of a woman unravelling her family's secrets and healing their wounds, while finding a route to real love.
www.buy.com is listing a different cover variant to the Perfect Play. I am assuming this is only for the US version.
It is also selling for less than Amazon, and if you spend over $25 at Buy.com, shipping is free. I've bought a lot of DVDs from Buy.com and they're fast and reliable.
Sleeper, live at Glastonbury 1995. Try not to get em all at once. I may be trying to stress test my bandwidth but ~150 MB worth of video may be a bit too much, so leave one or two 'til next year will you?
And while I'm here, I know how much the constant downloading of files and codecs and players and whatnot sucks. So for my third & final year University project I decided to improve things a little. I'd be eternally grateful if you helped out by filling in a small survey on media from the web. You don't have to provide an email or anything, just tick some boxes. Should only take a few minutes.
The actor Nick Moran was just on E4's Hijacked By section.
His final choice of music video was Sleeper's Vegas, which he accompanied with a story about how he used to hang with the band and became such good mates that he was asked to join. He agreed, but a certain film called Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels got in the way.
Just thought I'd post it because googling this info brought up nothing so it might not be previously known.
E4+1 are repeating this show right now so if you read this before 2:55pm today you can see the Vegas video in full.
The inclusion of The Weird Sisters in Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire follows a scene in the last Harry Potter film which showed Ian Brown waggling his finger around in a pub for about two seconds. Personally, we hope the Britpop/Harry Potter relationship keeps up - we'd love to find out that Harry's parents were Louise Wener and the bassist from Terrorvision.
I live in the US and we're slow on getting these UK Magazines. It is also really expensive ($10.95), but I think this one is worth it considering a digital version of the magazine will cost you about $9.95.
Following acclaimed volumes dedicated to The Beatles’ solo years, Punk, Goth, Glam and the New Romantics, NME Originals proudly presents Britpop. Covering the intensely entertaining period of British popular music between the emergence of Suede in the early ‘90s to our infamous front cover attack on the Blair government at the end of the decade, NME Originals Britpop celebrates the glory years of Blur, Oasis, Pulp, Supergrass, The Verve, Shed 7, Sleeper and The Spice Girls.
Reprinting – for the first time since their original publication – many interviews, reviews and news stories from the pages of NME and Melody Maker, Britpop is a blow by blow, hit by hit account of those heady years when London regained its place as the centre of the rock ‘n’ roll universe. Mile End, Knebworth, ‘Roll With It’ versus ‘Country House’, Euro ’96, Jarvis v Jacko… these are just a few of the legendary events captured within the 148 glossy pages of this mad-fer-it magazine.
Other characters who appear along the way include Gazza, Robbie, Chris Evans and, er, Menswear. It’s got nuffink to do wiv yer Vorsprung Durch Teknik y’know.
NME Originals: Britpop is out now.
There's very few Sleeper mentionings, they might as well changed the title to "OASIS and BLUR Magazine". I was kind of annoyed that the Spice Girls got more attention than dear Sleeper! Here is an excerpt with Louise Wener from NME (17 Feb 1996):
The Perfect Play (Paperback) Author: Louise Wener
ISBN: 006058548X
Format: Paperback
Publish Date: 10/1/2005
Pages: 352
Publisher: Perennial
Annotation: Audrey's father is a poker shark, and now that she's well into her 30s, she's thinking that maybe poker is her destiny, too. With Big Louie as her mentor, Audrey embarks on a poker odyssey that lands her in Las Vegas. But what about her devoted boyfriend, Joe? And her plans for marriage and children and career? As she gambles for high stakes, the heroine of this witty novel learns about more than poker. Before she turned to writing fiction, the author, Louise Wener, was the lead singer for the British pop band Sleeper.
Praise
Publishers Weekly
"[A] nervy, crackling novel....Emotional but never sentimental, Wener's novel is full of wisdom about luck and skill, grace and nerve...." 03/01/2004
Kirkus
"[E]ngaging prose and endearing characters bode well for Wener's new career." 04/15/2004
MARION, Powder, Salad? Not the latest vegetarian alternative to be added to the Starbucks lunchtime menu, just a clutch of acts that crept into the Britpop huddle all those years ago
(excerpt)
Wener
And it’s always nice to catch a glimpse of the scene's sex symbol-turned children’s author, Louise Wener of Sleeper fame, even though she's now in the middle of a blooming pregnancy.
Mixed in with snippets of the changing political scene at the time (Conservative decline/New Labour’s birth), Harris’ show really did create an intoxicating cocktail of the state of Britain at the time.
A further delve into the archive followed as a repeat of Blur’s prettyboy frontman Damon Albarn comically introducing a bunch of acts he insisted were about to give America a run for their money was aired.
And while Supergrass, Blur themselves and PJ Harvey have certainly stood the test of time, bands like Powder rarely impressed anyone outside of Camden. The spite in not including an Oasis live performance was therefore laughable.
Things quickly picked up with Storyville’s acclaimed Live Forever documentary featuring much of the same footage, but it was worth it to see a now world-weary Damon Albarn and a thoroughly unapologetic Noel Gallagher give their forthright views on their public fallout.
It's been a while and you probably know this already, but there is a review on the news.bbc.co.uk (Entertainment section) about what everyone in the BritPop scene are doing now - and Sleeper are mentioned - but they mention Louise having written three novels not two.
So I checked on Amazon.co.uk in case I missed a new one in the pipeline,
there is a new one due next April. They have it listed as 'Wener Untitled
#1' but this is the synopsis:
Synopsis Part mystery, part love story, part comic road trip, this is the story of
a woman unravelling her family's secrets and healing their wounds, while
finding a route to real love. Claire's older brother, Daniel, has
disappeared. Has he been killed? Has he been kidnapped? Or has he just had
enough?"
Britpop - Where are they now? Wednesday, 17 August 2005, 07:28 GMT 08:28 UK
By Ian Youngs
BBC News entertainment reporter
This week marks the 10th anniversary of the chart battle between Blur and Oasis at the height of Britpop. But what has happened to the stars from that scene?
(excerpt)
Sleeper
Sleeper singer Louise Wener has reinvented herself as a successful novelist, with three books published.
She also appeared on Celebrity Poker Club 2 on TV channel Challenge in 2004, facing Big Brother's "Nasty" Nick and snooker player Willie Thorne.
Bassist Diid Osman is in management and drummer Andy Maclure started a Punk Rock Karaoke night, in which fans sing with a live band, with Steve Lamacq.
Just saw the Britpop thing on BBC4 . Lousie was on looking good and talking sense wearing a blue dress and is about I'd say in my non medical opinon about 6-7months pregnant. take it easy Vu
This week marks the 10th anniversary of the chart battle between Blur and Oasis at the height of Britpop. In the first of a series of features, we look at how Britpop was born.
(excerpt)
Confidence
Political and musical developments went together for a time
As Oasis enjoyed hits with rousing anthems Live Forever and Cigarettes and Alcohol, Blur hit new heights with Girls and Boys and Parklife, social commentary dressed as pop hits.
That set the scene for their chart showdown the following summer - and for a new crop of acts like Supergrass, Menswear, Sleeper and Dodgy to take the stage.
Some of those bands were inspired by the confidence and success of the Britpop pioneers, while others merely happened to come along at the same time.
But they all became part of Britpop and helped the UK's alternative rock regain its voice - for a while.
The Britpop Story In August 1995 Blur and Oasis were engaged in a head-to-head chart battle that divided music fans and led to a wider argument about British pop music.
On Tuesday 16 August, BBC FOUR marks the tenth anniversary of this grudge match with Britpop Night.
John Harris, journalist and author of The Last Party, the definitive study of the Britpop and New Labour, presents The Britpop Story.
This documentary charts the rise of Britpop, its brief romance with New Labour, and the emergence of the 'new lad' culture. Finally, as Britpop declines, he asks what legacy has been left behind.
Including contributions from Blur's Graham Coxon, Elastica's Justine Frischmann, Sleeper's Louise Wener, former New Labour insider, Darren Kalynuk and the founder of Creation records, Alan McGee. [S]
Today's riff A Britpop special. In a frankly humbling development, it's exactly ten years since a young, lithe, centre-partinged Smyth rushed to Parrott Records in Canterbury in his lunchtime to buy Roll With It (but not Country House; Oasis always did the better B-sides back in the day, and I always empathised with the Manc skanks). It was the zenith of Britpop, and it brings a tear to the eye. So, today, favourite Britpop memories - Northern Uproar? Louise Wener looking staggeringly attractive (and very cold) on that Lamacq-presented Britpop Now program? those ironic pink 'Take That Love You' T-shirts? Select magazine? Bluetonic? The chorus on Daydreamer? Ooh I'm getting all warm and nostalgic now. I could almost drink a warm can of Carling.
The issue contains a big special section on the mid-90s Britpop scene, which includes new interviews with various Britpop bands. The issue are features the first American interview and photo-shoot with The Tears (the new band featuring Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler of Suede). Here are the details.
Without Britpop, would we have had hit guitar groups, stadium anthems or rock stars on Newsnight? Ten years on, John Harris looks back on how Blur, Oasis, Pulp and co changed the face of UK music
(excerpt)
Frischmann is about to begin life as a mature student in the US. Cocker called time on Pulp in 2002, and seems to have settled into a life of semi-retirement. The lion's share of Britpop's mid-table attractions - Sleeper, Gene, Shed Seven - have split up. By the time you get into the bands who fell at the first hurdle, you begin to wonder whether they ever existed at all; who, aside from the most hard-bitten trivia buffs, has any clear memory of Powder, Northern Uproar, Laxton's Superb or Octopus?
...
"I loved their honesty, their openness, the way they treated their success," says Louise Wener, the one-time singer with Sleeper, now a successful writer whose third novel is about to go into print. "They weren't embarrassed or ashamed by it. It was, 'I'm going to be a rock'n' roll star, I'm going to ride around in a Rolls-Royce, if I make a million quid I'm going to roll around in it.' They were the chavs of Britpop."
This Village Voice article about the demise of BritPop ten years ago did two things for me: One, made me feel really old. Two, made me realize that while I've mentioned my falling out with BritPop before in passing, I've never really gotten into specifics. I guess now's as good a time as any.
(excerpt)
The thing is, after a while I realized I wasn't really enjoying it all that much. More and more of the acts the British press was trying to convince me would be the next saviours of music turned out to be, well, more than a little bit crap - you can only recycle the same influences so many times before it all gets excessively generic and creatively stagnant. Which isn't so much a problem if you just want something that sounds like the last thing you liked, but if you wanted something more, it was sadly deficient. By this point, my CD collection was overflowing with the latest "next big things" as decreed by Select, NME, Q, etc - Shed Seven, Sleeper, Echobelly, Kenickie, Embrace, Ocean Colour Scene, The Bluetones... Not inherently bad, some of it quite passable, but not really stuff that stood up especially well outside the Britpop bubble. Instead of renewing my passion for the genre, it only reinforced how disillusioned I was with it all. Combine this epiphany with my discovery of far more interesting and adventurous music from what would soon be known as indie rock originating from this side of the Atlantic and you were looking at a complete sea change in my musical tastes. And it turns out those cute girls were only interested in tall skinny dudes with lame-o Anglo affectations. Bitter? Me? Nah.
My only Sleeper friend has decided to move back to her hometown. I knew she wouldn't last more than six months !! Haha. Wuss. You heard me, Celeste.
My bicycle is FIXED FINALLY. I got a flat last Sunday (after spending some quality time with Celeste at the Gay/Lesbian Pride Festival) and have been pretty bicycleless for a week now.
I went to buy a repair kit for my tubes and ended up causing more harm than good.
So I went to the bike store to get a new tube (I can't fix the flat tire for the life of me !! I suck !!!!) and they FREAKING SOLD ME THE WRONG KIND.
By the time I took my tires back to get it exchanged for the correct size, they were closed!!!
I finally got some free time to drive there today and got it exchanged so I finally fixed my flats. Tubes are $5, that is totally worth it - rather than spending hours trying to find and patch a hole.
So my bike is useable now. Everything is in its right place now. Life is good. I am going to take it for a spin to downtown !
As the garrisons of the Blairite army wind up their years of service, it's worth remembering those soldiers who fell in the early period of the new Labour revolution. I speak of those members of the Britpop corps who failed to make it to 2005 (or even 1997) to collect their war pension. The indie bands which warranted only footnotes in that edition of Vanity Fair with Liam Gallagher and Patsy Kensit draped in a Union Jack. "London swings!" announced the cover, but it didn't for very long for Dodgy, Menswear, Echobelly, Kenickie, Sleeper, Dubstar . . . (I could go on.) Many of these bands were scorned at the time, but despite their identikit one-word band names - and some would say identikit guitar-pop - I think reappraisals are in order.
Sleeper, for example, may have consisted of the singer Louise Wener (she is now a successful novelist) and a backing band so nondescript they earned the nickname "Sleeperblokes", but they produced, over the course of three mid-1990s albums, a number of great, now largely forgotten singles. Take "Inbetweener". Its lyrics about suburban ennui are so tacky it could easily have featured on Blur's lamentable Great Escape album - yet it's a quite impeccable pop song (you can download it, along with "What Do I Do Now?", "Sale of the Century" and others, on iTunes).
I would happily recommend lost Britpop classics until the ice caps melted and David Davis became prime minister, but, in brief, try rediscovering Lauren Laverne's old group Kenickie ("I Would Fix You", "Punka", "In Your Car" - all fantastic, all on [http://www.mycokemusic.com]), or Dubstar (witty, melancholic electro-pop; try "Not So Manic Now" or "Stars" from iTunes), or Echobelly (if only for Sonya Aurora Madan's incredible voice - get "King of the Kerb" from iTunes). It occurs to me that these bands have few Y chromosomes between them, and this brief bout of gender equality in indie music is another reason to look kindly on an unfairly maligned period in British music. After all, how often do female artists grace the cover of the NME these days?
Vous vous souvenez de Sleeper? En 1994-95, Sleeper caracolait en tête des charts indés anglais avec leurs singles Swallow, InBetweener, Twisted (à vérifier : c'est mon frère qui a un des singles en question). A l'époque, le monde indé se divisait en 2 camps : les pro-Sleeper contre les pro-Elastica et les pro-Blur contre les pro-Oasis (couv' Inrocks Oasis versus Blur si j'me souviens bien). Il y'avait également des trouble-fêtes de luxe comme Echobelly, Salad et Madder Rose pour les filles, et Pulp, Suède + the Auteurs pour les garçons : on pouvait mettre tout ce petit monde sous un même qualificatif : la brit-pop (OK les Auteurs, c'est de la new wave of new wave, mais c'est de la brit-pop classieuse quand même). Moi j'étais plutôt Louise Wener de Sleeper que Justine Frischmann d'Elastica (j'avais un copain qui était complètement amoureux de Justine Frischmann, la copine de Damon Albarn de Blur). medium_louise.jpgDans ces 2 filles, il y'avait un côté garçon manqué par la coupe de cheveux courte et en même temps ces filles étaient hyper féminines, elles avaient du chien, de l'allure, du caractère, elles étaient sexys quoi! presque dominatrices. de véritables James Bond Girls ou Riot Girls qui mettaient littéralement à terre (de désir et d'envie) tous les mecs qu'elles croisaient sur leur passage). Dans Trainspotting, il y'a cette scène de discothèque formidable où Ewan Mc Gregor tombe littéralement en extase sur Kelly McDonald : medium_diane-kelly_macdonald-trainspotting.jpgelle est là seule accoudée au comptoir du bar avec sa robe à paillettes et il sait que c'est elle, the IT girl, la fille de ses rêves. Et si je me souviens bien (je l'ai revu il y'a qqs mois sur M6, j'ai pas le DVD), quand on la voit apparaître comme une illumination, c'est Sleeper (single Atomic présent sur la B.O du film) qui est en fonds sonore. Et cette scène et ce qui suit dans la rue quand il sort de la discothèque pour la rattraper avant qu'elle ne monte dans un taxi, je la considère comme une des + belles scènes de cinéma. Les néons de la discothèque, l'image qui tourne comme si on était sous ecstasy, et la musique de Sleeper qui t'envoies dans les étoiles...Alors grâce au post de Turquoise Days, je suis content d'apprendre que Louise Wener est toujours vivante et qu'elle se porte plutôt bien, vu qu'elle attend probablement un bébé et qu'elle a écrit 2 romans manifestement passionnants depuis le split de Sleeper fin déc. 98. Les grandes dames ne meurent jamais.
I haven't written in a while (not that you missed me). I hope things are good with you.
I just wanted to let you know that
Spring is here.... which means that I will probably be outside a lot (which also means lack of updates, boo hoo!)
So, here is a recent photograph of my current bicycle and me.
Yeah, we look tough, yo.
And of all the rotten luck - I found out that I won a date... with a guy ! It also involves getting filthy in mud and a prom. I have no idea what's going on, details are pretty vague, but I was promised it will be fun and that I didn't have to make out with Aaron or Theresa (my other date I guess).
Oh, I helped my friend Chrissy get this gig with Girl in a Coma! To be honest, all I did was told Chrissy that GIAC was looking for local Philly bands and the rest just few into place. Anyroad, the band is featured on their local newspaper:
On Myspace they liken themselves to "candy that makes noise," but that might bring to mind some sugary-sweet pop band. Nope. Scratchy-voiced Xrissy and the rest of this Philly four-piece make raw, melodic punk pop about lust, angst and feeling fucked up. That puts them squarely in the "noisy cough drop" category.
--Patrick Rapa
Wed., May 11, 9 p.m., $5, with Girl in a Coma and Mini Band, The Fire, 412 W. Girard Ave., 267-671-9298.
Also, it's much too late to mention it, but Canada was great, I had such a good time there. I secretly want to be Canadian now. Thanks for reading, have a great day !
Louise Wener is known to many as the lead singer of the 90’s UK band Sleeper, but in recent years, she’s taken up a new career: author. "The biggest hurdle was admitting to myself that I wanted to do it," she says. "It's quite intimidating when you first think of it, but once I started it was so enjoyable, I couldn't stop." In her latest novel, Goodnight Steve McQueen, a young guitarist named Danny (but who was born Steve McQueen) is spurred on to musical success after his girlfriend gives him a deadline for success or she’ll leave him. What neither of them bargains for is that the long-struggling musician and his shambling bandmates will actually wind up hitting the big time. Wener emailed special Beatrice correspondent Rachel Kramer Bussel from her UK home to discuss writing in a male voice, band life and the status of women in rock.
How did you first get into writing? What are the differences for you in writing songs and writing longer material, whether articles or novels? I'm not sure how I got into writing in the first place, it just feels like something I've always done, be it poems, lyrics, articles or just keeping a diary. Towards the end of the band I think I became frustrated with the constraints of the three-minute pop song. There are only so many lyrics you can cram in there. My songs were always character driven and the idea of expanding them into a novel seemed like a logical next step.
Goodnight Steve McQueen took about six months to complete and The Perfect Play a little under a year. With GSM I had all the research in place and was able to draw on my experiences of playing and touring with a rock band. The gigs, the venues, the smell of the tour bus, the characters were all right there in my head. With The Perfect Play, I did a lot of additional research. It's set in the world of poker and gambling, so I had to learn how to play poker properly and spent a lot of time in casinos; losing money and learning from pro players, studying their mannerisms and behavior.
Sat, 13 Jan 2007 04:13:24 CST
PHONOGRAM #1 (Sep 2006)
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